Spot respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what data we handle, how it is used, and what control you have over it. It applies to everyone who uses Spot worldwide, including users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, the State of California (USA), and the United Arab Emirates. Our guiding principle is simple: this policy describes exactly what the App does — no more, no less.
Spot is operated by White Whale Portal, based in the United Arab Emirates (“we,” “us,” “our”). For the purposes of applicable data protection law, White Whale Portal is the data controller for any personal data processed through the App. If you have any questions about this policy or about how your data is handled, you can contact us at contact@spotcards.app.
Spot is built as a local-first application. Your collection (the “Garage”), your map, your catch history, your preferences, and any display name or avatar you set are stored on your device. Spot does not maintain user accounts, does not require registration, and does not ask for your name, email address, phone number, or password. Your collection is device-scoped and anonymous.
Unlike a purely offline app, Spot has one — and only one — reason to send data to us: to identify the car in a photo you choose to catch. That process is described in Section 3. Nothing else you create in Spot — your Garage, your map pins, your location history, your display name, or your device signals — is transmitted to us or to anyone else. It stays on your phone.
There is one other exchange, and it is not with us: if you subscribe to Spot Pro, your device talks to Apple to take the payment and to confirm the subscription is active. That is between you and Apple and never reaches our servers. Section 5 sets out exactly what is and is not involved.
On-device privacy scrub. When you catch a car, the App uses your camera to take a photo. Before that image leaves your device, Spot automatically attempts to blur license plates, faces, and visible ID or government numbers — directly on your phone, before any network connection is made. This blur is automatic but best-effort: it is not guaranteed to detect every plate, face, or number. Before you submit a catch, you can review the image and manually blur more using the built-in brush.
AI recognition. After blurring, the processed image — and nothing else — is sent over an encrypted HTTPS connection to our backend service (hosted on Render, a cloud infrastructure provider), which forwards it to a third-party artificial-intelligence provider, Anthropic, solely to identify the vehicle’s make, model, and year. No location, device identifier, name, or account information is attached to the image; we send the picture and receive back a short text description of the car.
A photo can still contain personal information — for example if the automatic blur misses something, or if people, private property, or documents are visible in the background. For that reason you should only submit catches you are comfortable processing in this way.
What our backend does with your photo. Our backend does not store your photos. It holds each image in memory only for the brief moment needed to pass it to the AI provider and return the result, and the image is discarded as soon as that request completes. We do not write catch photos to any database, disk, or log, and we keep no server-side copy of them.
What the AI provider does with your photo. Anthropic processes the image under its Commercial Terms of Service. Under those terms, Anthropic does not use inputs or outputs submitted through its commercial API to train its models, and it automatically deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days — except where longer retention is required to investigate a violation of its usage policies (up to two years) or to comply with a legal obligation. Anthropic’s servers are located in the United States, so this step involves an international transfer of data (see Section 13). You can review Anthropic’s privacy and commercial terms on anthropic.com.
If you grant permission, Spot collects your approximate location when you catch a car, in order to calculate how rare that car is in your area and to place a pin on your personal map. This location is deliberately coarse: before it is ever used or stored, Spot rounds your coordinates to a neighborhood-level grid (approximately 250 meters), so the App does not record precisely where you were standing. Location is collected only while you are actively using the App (“when in use”).
Your coordinates are stored only on your device, as part of your local Garage and map. They are never transmitted to our backend or to the AI provider, and the photo sent for recognition carries no location data. The App remains fully usable without location — you simply do not receive the regional rarity factor or a map pin for that catch. You can grant or revoke location access at any time in your device settings.
Apple takes the payment, not us. Spot offers an optional paid subscription, Spot Pro. Every purchase is made through Apple’s In-App Purchase system, and Apple is the seller. We never see or receive your card number, billing address, or Apple Account details, and no payment information passes through our servers \u{2014} buying Spot Pro does not contact our backend at all.
What the App knows about your subscription. The App asks Apple’s on-device purchasing framework a single question: whether a Spot Pro subscription is currently active. It receives back a yes or a no. That answer is re-read from Apple each time the App launches rather than saved anywhere, so Spot holds no record of what you bought, when you bought it, what you paid, or when your subscription renews.
What Apple knows. Apple processes and retains your purchase under Apple’s own privacy policy, for its own billing, tax, and fraud-prevention purposes. That processing is between you and Apple, and may involve international transfers under Apple’s own safeguards. We can see sales reports in Apple’s developer tools, but these are aggregate totals by country and product \u{2014} they do not name you and cannot be linked to your Garage.
No account, either way. Because Spot has no user accounts, a subscription is attached to your Apple Account rather than to any profile we hold. Restoring a purchase asks Apple, not us.
For full transparency, here is every category of data involved in using Spot, and exactly where it goes:
If you are located in the EEA or the UK, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires us to have a legal basis for processing personal data. We rely on the following:
If you are located in the EEA or the UK, you have the following rights under the GDPR:
Because Spot stores your collection on your device and keeps no account or server-side profile, you can exercise most of these rights directly: delete individual catches, or erase all local data, from within the App. There is no server-side copy of your Garage, your photos, or your location for us to hold. For anything you cannot resolve in the App, contact us at contact@spotcards.app. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.
If you are a California resident, the CCPA/CPRA provide you with the following rights:
To exercise these rights, contact us at contact@spotcards.app.
Spot does not sell, rent, trade, or share your personal data with any third party for advertising, marketing, or profiling — there is no such sharing to opt out of. We rely on three service providers, and only to run the App:
Spot has no advertising, analytics, or tracking partners.
Your collection, map, and catch history remain on your device for as long as you choose to keep them; you can delete individual catches or erase all local data at any time, which removes them permanently from your device.
On our side, there is almost nothing to retain: our backend does not store your catch photos — each image is discarded the moment recognition is complete — and we keep no account, no profile, and no server-side copy of your Garage or location. The AI provider, Anthropic, automatically deletes the images it receives within 30 days (longer only where required to investigate a policy violation or to comply with law, as described in Section 3).
Subscription records are the one thing we could not delete even if you asked: we never hold them. Apple retains your purchase history for as long as its own policies and its legal obligations require, and any request to see or delete it goes to Apple.
Spot is not intended for anyone under the age of 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. In any region where a higher minimum age applies, that higher age governs. If you believe a child has used the App and provided personal information, contact us at contact@spotcards.app and we will address it.
Spot is operated from the United Arab Emirates. To identify a car, your blurred photo is transmitted to our backend and to the AI provider on servers located in the United States. This is an international transfer of data. For users in the EEA and the UK, this transfer is made under the data processing terms and Standard Contractual Clauses offered by our AI provider, Anthropic, as its safeguard under Chapter V of the GDPR. Because the photo is used only to return a car identification, is not stored by our backend, and is deleted by the provider within 30 days, the data involved in the transfer is limited and short-lived. By using the App, you understand that this transfer takes place.
Spot is intended for photographing vehicles in public places. The App automatically blurs faces and license plates on a best-effort basis, but you remain responsible for using Spot lawfully and respectfully. In particular, the United Arab Emirates has strict laws about photographing people and private property without their consent, and similar rules apply in many other countries. You agree that you will not use Spot to photograph individuals, private property, or restricted, military, or government sites where local law requires a consent or permission you do not have. Do not rely on the automatic blur to make an otherwise unlawful photograph lawful.
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect data on your device and in transit, including encrypted HTTPS connections for everything transmitted to our services, and on-device processing that keeps most of your data off the network entirely. However, no method of electronic storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. In particular, the automatic blur is best-effort and may not remove every piece of personal information from an image before it is processed.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The date at the top indicates the most recent revision. For material changes, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you through the App. Continued use of the App after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
For any privacy-related question, contact us at contact@spotcards.app.